{"id":369078,"date":"2025-08-24T06:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T06:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369078\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T06:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T06:02:18","slug":"magnum-photos-agencys-first-exhibition-lost-for-a-half-century-to-make-its-north-american-debut-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369078\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnum Photos agency\u2019s first exhibition, lost for a half-century, to make its North American debut – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Downtown Toronto\u2019s Image Centre is digging deep for a restaging of Magnum\u2019s First<\/a>, the celebrated picture agency\u2019s long-forgotten inaugural exhibition. It was shown at several Austrian venues in 1955-56 but never seen on this side of the Atlantic\u2014until now.<\/p>\n

On display will be 83 of the show\u2019s original gelatin-silver prints. Magnum\u2019s First features works by many of the 20th century\u2019s most celebrated photojournalists\u2014among them Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, who co-founded Magnum in 1947 with George Rodger and David \u201cChim\u201d Seymour. Other photographers in the show include Werner Bischof, Inge Morath, Ernst Haas, Marc Riboud, Jean Marquis and Erich Lessing.<\/p>\n

The exhibition\u2019s materials had laid dormant for a half-century in the basement of the Institut Fran\u00e7ais in Innsbruck, Austria, before being rediscovered in 2006. Included were a poster and hanging instructions for the show. The installation, originally titled Gesicht der Zeit (face of time), will be meticulously reconstructed for its Toronto debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are proposing a display respectful to the original,\u201d says Ga\u00eblle Morel, the Image Centre\u2019s curator. \u201cWe are also including the original wooden crates, labels and introductory text.\u201d She adds that there will be a new text included to \u201ccontextualise the exhibition and tell the story of the discovery. The exhibition is a nice opportunity to show how Magnum Photos decided to turn into a cultural institution in the 1950s with books and exhibitions; not just focusing on the illustrated press but expanding its activities beyond printed journalistic media.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Inge Morath\u2019s Eveleigh Nash at Buckingham Palace Mall, London, Great Britain (1953) \u00a9 Inge Morath\/Magnum Photos<\/p>\n

Morel says that while she does not like to pick favourites, \u201cMorath\u2019s series on London shows a lot of wit and humour, while at the same time insisting on the rich-and-poor class divide. I find it very smart and well executed.\u201d Included in the show are Morath\u2019s Lloyds Bank and Eveleigh Nash at Buckingham Palace Mall (both 1953).<\/p>\n

At the Image Centre, the rediscovered Magnum\u2019s First will run concurrently with an exhibition devoted to one of Magnum\u2019s founders. Chim\u2019s Children of Europe<\/a> will chronicle Seymour\u2019s 1949 project, commissioned by Unesco, documenting the dire living conditions of young people in postwar Europe.<\/p>\n

The Image Centre is a photography and art museum, part of Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). It opened in 2012 and occupies an old warehouse, since remodelled, on the university\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n